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A Right Royal Welcome

This must be how royalty feels. Each village has been lavishly decorated with flags, their streets flanked by dancing warriors with crowds waving from their doorsteps.

A right royal welcome to Selaya

The villagers have all entertained us with music and dance troupes, the boys armed with spears and swords perform a traditional war dance, the girls, heads demurely tilted, sway with fans or tassels. The cruisers, or yachters as we are call here, have been invited on to the floor, our clumsily efforts paling in comparison. Food has generously been prepared, mostly fish and interesting dishes made from seaweeds, a speciality of the region, all deliciously spiced as is the way with Indonesian cuisine. I drank a ginger tea, that thick and sweet, can be best described as a cup of liquid ginger cake.

The effort each village has obviously put into our visit has been humbling and we feel we have given little but our presence in return.

An evening of entertainment at Wab Nagufur Beach

Of course along with all entertainment comes speeches from the local dignitaries and people high up in the ministry of tourism, often full of self importance keen to be seen by each other doing their bit. The villages have gone to great lengths to supply English speakers to translate and the message is ‘please tell other people to come and visit our islands’. Tourism is currently centred on Bali and the rest of Indonesia is keen to share in the spoils.

There is certainly plenty of traditional Indonesia to explore, the colours every where are incredible and the people welcoming. If there is enough infrastructure, transport, accommodation, freedom of movement is another question however.

The children especially are delightful, bright smiling faces greeting us at every turn. Most have a few phrases of English and are excited to use them. With over 30 boats in the anchorage, parking of each dingy is quite a challenge especially with a two metre spring tide added into the mix. We returned one evening to the dark dock all wondering how we were going to reach our dinghies which were now three metres down below the quay. No problem, adults armed with torches had assigned one small boy to each dingy, who on request paddled it to the steps so we could get on. Such small attention to detail by the locals continued to make us feel special.

Hundreds of smiling faces

By the end of four days, however, our enthusiasm for coach trips over pot holed roads and sitting sweltering through official pronouncements of welcome were beginning to wane. So Saturday we took a last trip into the larger town of Langgur, cajoled a couple more million rupiah out of the ATM, stocked up with what we could find at the market and prepared to set off.

Finding anchorages here is not easy, coastal waters are very deep right up to the surrounding reefs and information from those that have gone before is sparse. From the charts and google earth I picked out a likely spot about 40nm in the direction towards our next rally stop, with the potential for shelter and a chance to swim and snorkel. A few other yachts were heading the same way and between us we felt we could narrow down the choices of bays. The one I had picked, turned out to be full of fishing and seaweed growing rigs and exposed to fetch. On the north side of the same island, Palau Walir, another boat found a quieter spot and we all converged there.

Finally we could swim, the water was 26 degrees, a reef sat just a hundred metres from our stern and there were no crocodiles or deadly jelly fish.

Colourful beneath the water as above

The reef was best snorkelled at low tide where as the beach was only reachable when it was high. Unfortunately the turquoise water and white sand was spoilt by more of the rubbish we are finding everywhere in Indonesia. The beach was backed by coconut trees and there was evidence of a small amount of copra production reminiscent of that in French Polynesia. The odd long boat came past and we found a small traditional dug out canoe full of fishing nets. The rubbish is obviously not being produced in this bay but must arrive on the tide from other more populace parts. How the country starts to tackle this enormous problem is difficult to say but if they want to preserve their beautiful surroundings and the life in their seas that they depend on for food, and attract tourists, it is something they are going to have to do.